Does FFXIV ARR provide the best MMORPG experience?

I really enjoy it, and it has pushed out content faster than any other mmo I have ever played.

Hell no. It could be, maybe, if SE bothered to fix some of the glaring problems (servers, housing, item storage) that limit where the game can go. It saddens me, because under this big pile of flaws, there's this really great game desperately trying to claw its way out. You can tell Yoshida and co are sincere in their desire to provide a good experience, at least they seem to be to me, but I can't help but shake the impression that they just don't get the necessary support from the higher ups at SE to fully deliver. I wonder about this game's budget and the size of its development team, to be honest. Really can't help but think that neither is sufficient at the moment to deliver on all the promises that were made.

I would say so. Compared to other MMOs FFXIV ARR has far fewer flaws than the other MMOs out there while still holding a rich experience for players.

Its an easy game. Shallow mechanics and a lack of diversity. Oh to have a game that's actually hard again, can only hope.

There's not a lot of thinking required in this game. It's mostly a matter of "am I doing max DPS? If not, how do I do max DPS?" I would have loved to play a dedicated support job or do crowd control or anything else beyond just hitting mobs as hard as I can. The most thought required is determining how to best spread aetherflow or minimize loss of buffs like greased lightning in boss fights.

Unfortunately, the crafting system has a lot more depth to it than the combat in this game.

It's good but not the best, LOTRO was amazing until after Rise of Isengard (such a good expansion) and then it went mega downhill to where it is now, and other MMO's I've played are dead

The game is too easy which makes it too quick to blast through content and go "what now?" I have five classes at ilvl 190+. HW dungeons were mind-numbingly easy -- even during early access. The classic dungeons were far more difficult before the gear buff in HW. I wished Square didn't implement that buff and I wished the HW dungeons were tuned to be slightly more difficult. Most of the content is by-the-numbers with little concern of deaths outside of Nidhogg or Alex Savage (i.e. DPS checks).

I really think this game has made major improvements since launch, believe it or not the difficulty of the first relic and ex primal drove a lot of players away. Que up Titan hm
Sub item level i70 and you will see what I mean, or try turn 5 sub i90.

The only thing I'm going to add here as to why this game does NOT provide an excellent MMORPG experience is community.

As in it doesn't exist. Not on these forums, not in game.

Whats worse is SE does absolutely nothing to help promote community. You can literally be online all fucking day in this game and not see a single person use chat feature outside of FCs. Now I've been at this a long time. I've played many many MMOs over the course of 20 years. I've never played one where the only communication that occurred was through relatively private chat channels. It's like we all want to be in our own little micro communities and piss on everyone else, and then wonder why this game is so toxic.

Whats sad about this.. if that most of these posts are talking about content. The thing is, if you have a strong community in a game. content can often times take a back seat, even in themeparks.

it's my current favourite, but it has it's niggling issues.

So... yes, maybe, perhaps. But it's all about your own tastes.

Completely an opinion question.

My answer: No.

The community in this game is just not there. You stand in town, queue up for dungeons and most people you encounter don't speak or say "hello" at most. The 24 man raid content that was promised is laughably easy and made up of mostly strangers who again, just hardly speak.

I don't like the endgame. I think the 4 important fights per 6-7 months needed reworked in 3.0, but they're sticking with what brought them the subs/money.

In contrast, in FFXI you knew the people on your server, you knew the crafters, you talked about who did/was doing what (even on other servers). The glory days of that game are well behind it, but it had a great community.

One thing is for sure if you don't initiate conversation in this game you will get none. I earlier tried sparking a conversation in Idylshire and really couldn't get people talking. They should add an element that requires some interaction. What that is IDK.

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Originally Posted by Iris_BP

Seriously?.. Of all things?
Your posts really sound like trolling, but I will feed nevertheless.

FFxiv story might not be extremely engaging for some people, but it is very well written for a game. Game writers for FFXIV did a great job (my props also go to english writers/editors who did an amazing job tranlsating it so it feels genuine).

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Meh. It's nice story for an MMO, but for a game? Naaaah, can't tell me this compares to well-written games in general.

Right now? Yeah, might be a good case for it being the best right now. But there isn't any real competition, so that's not really fair. Most other mmos were already dead or dying when ARR launched. The only real competition is WoW, and... well WoW is WoW. Most other recent mmos at their peak could've given it a run for its money, though.

I'm with the story-is-good-but-not-great crowd. The class quests in tor were way better imo (especially imperial agent). Compared to most other mmos it's definitely still a really good story, but compared to single player games? Not really. I always enjoy going through the story when patches come out, but it's just a nice bonus. I don't really get hyped or look forward to it. It's just neat and fun when it happens.

Just want to give some new life to this thread, I think SE offers a high level of customer support and listens to its community compared to other mmos. Also they release significant content pretty fast. I mean WOW's WOD is pretty much done releasing content and they are 10 months from an expansion. Also look at DESTINY on ps4 people grind away on the same content for years and they maintain a huge player base. In my opinion at the moment SE is offering an amazing MMORPG experience and its only 15USD a month and you could play this game for 12 plus hours a day for months on end and not run out of things to do.

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Originally Posted by Blazer

queue up for dungeons and most people you encounter don't speak or say "hello" at most. .

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I don't ever bother typing in dungeons because its pointless, you play with people that you never going to see again.

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Originally Posted by LunaSnowfield

I don't ever bother typing in dungeons because its pointless, you play with people that you never going to see again.

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A simple hello wouldn't hurt though, I recently started playing WoW again and when I entered the dungeon, not a word. S/he pulled within 10 seconds of us loading into the dungeon with absolutely no conversation, not even a "Goodbye", "Good game", "Thanks for the party" I might as well have been playing with NPCs/bots. I'm somewhat accustomed to it since JP players also say that at the start and after leaving, so it was a little odd.

Metioned in another post I only played 3 mmo's in my lifetime, this, XI and Runescape
but I'd just like to say as a Final Fantasy game, it's pretty good all the elements that make it a FF game are there
as a multiplayer game? Not really as others have mentioned I don't think this game has a great social community not matter what data center you're on.
It seems once you make friends in this game you stick to your little group in your linkshells. Everyone has their own little circle, I do try to talk to people and even invite players in Parties from PF i've been in if they wanna run stuff but I never really get far.

Maybe it's just me, lol.

In RS I remember it was the complete opposite, everyone was talking and communicating, this was back in 2006 though, don't know what it's like now.

But yeah, playing it as a single player FF like the other 12 mainline games? it sure feels that way most the time.

The social aspect of FF is mostly the player's responsibility.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink it."

Based on the factors of my work schedule, what the game offers, the time needed to do the various dungeons, complete emphasis on PVE, and the amount of content available. FFXIV provides the best MMO experience suited to me, for the moment. If I had more time I might go to another game with heavier emphasis on raiding and more dedicated scheduling needed to do them or with better PVP if I was feeling in the mood to do that again.

There're bad experiences in FFXIV but comparing to other MMOs.... I'll choose FFXIV any day.

I'd say right now XIV is the most well rounded MMO available. There are things it does better than other games, and there are things that other games do way better. But the whole package that is XIV edges out what other MMOs in the same category (subscription) have to offer.

I always joke that WoW is the "King of MMOs" in the same way that Budweiser is the king of beers. To stretch that metaphor, XIV is a decent craft beer alternative, such as Sam Adams. Some people complain that it's not really craft beer, but it still holds that title with the craft brewers association so it counts.

Is Sam Adams the best craft wheat beer? the best craft summer ale? The best stout, porter, lager? Absolutely not. Every beer they make, another brewer probably makes a better one.

Is it the best beer value for your money? Arguably so, and pretty tasty even if it's not the best.

XIV is the current best MMO value for your dollar. And that's a good place for a game to be, even if they're not the best at everything - or anything.

The main problems isn't content or lack of content. SE does an outstanding job of providing outstanding high quality content faster then any mmo I have ever seen. The main problem is DPS checks, content should be more focused around mechanics not DPS cheks, now I do agree there should be some DPS checks in place to prevent people from face-rolling content but not to this extream. Fights should be based off of Mechanics not DPS cheks. DPS cheks only serve one purpose. To artificially inflate the lifespan of the content, that's the only reason why its there.

Yes it does, but WoW is still a better game imo.

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Originally Posted by ShiloEET

Yes it does, but WoW is still a better game imo.

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WoW's graphics were really beginning to show their age. The recent graphical overhaul they did added at least another 3-4 years of useful life to the game. Which is important since they cancelled their next MMO project. Any news on if they're rebooting it?

WoW has done a lot of things right over the years with their game. It is because of this, that so many other games has used some of their ideas to make their games better.


While, FFXIV is a good game, there is always room for improvement. There are two features that I have seen in other games that I could see making this game great if they were added into this game.

1) The Alternate Advancement (AA) system from EQ1. This system allowed for almost limitless improving of one's character beyond just getting the best possible gear. Some of the improvements included base increases to basic stats, crit, crit damage, hit, run speed, and many many more.

A system like this could easily give players a reason to keep logging in every day after they have capped on ESOs.

2) The artifact weapon system from the upcoming WoW expansion. At its core this system is essentially the same thing as the relic weapon. Via a quest you obtain a weapon for your class. It levels with you. Through the experience you gain, the player earns points to unlock special abilities via the weapon. Increased damage on certain skills, increased crit, damage reduction, some procs, etc.

This system seems very much like relic quests from 2.0. Albeit minus the added procs. A system like this could be the perfect base system to build the entire relic quest line on. All SE would have to do is to just add another tab of unlock or more ranks to the current ones.

This game, like any other MMO, has the problem of content. Content that keeps players returning day after day, week after week. Players now days get bored with things so quickly. How many people do you see running the expert roulette dungeons more than once a day? How many times after they cap for the week?

Things like this would be to the entire player base's benefit. It is something that any player can put time into to get a good return on their investment.

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1) The Alternate Advancement (AA) system from EQ1. This system allowed for almost limitless improving of one's character beyond just getting the best possible gear. Some of the improvements included base increases to basic stats, crit, crit damage, hit, run speed, and many many more.

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FFXI added a similar system at 75 cap called Merit Points. They were additions to base stats that applied cross class. They also allowed for buffs to abilities. It's how XI finally forced specialization on you since you had a limited number of merit points you could distribute. Add it to your INT for your caster? Add it to your CHR for your bard or your beastmaster? Tack on extra HP to live, or extra MP to go longer? Balance your stats, or stack them?

I think that system will be an addition for once they don't anticipate the level cap going up for a very long time. 75 was the cap in XI for 7 or so years, so merits definitely bridged the gap.